Monday, July 21, 2014

God Speed James Garner

James Garner and his wife Lois Fleischman Clarke. Source: AP

James Garner

1928-2014

I was very sad and somewhat shocked to hear of the death of actor James Garner. On screen, he was always charming and gave consistently good performances. And boy was he handsome!
James Garner was a talent who mastered both film and TV. I’ve enjoyed watching him in films such as Boys’ Night Out (1962), The Great Escape (1963), The Thrill of It All (1963) and Grand Prix (1966). And for me, the best parts of the contemporary film The Notebook (2004) were the scenes with Garner whose role and performance were what made the film a classic tearjerker.
One of the things I love about Garner is that he was a fighter, a quality that I’m sure resulted from his rough childhood. He wasn’t afraid to stand up for what he believed in.

This blog has been getting a lot of traffic lately because of this post I did about James Garner two years ago: ‘Til Death Do Us Part – James Garner and Lois Fleischman Clarke. Before I got married in 2012, I did a blog series called ‘Til Death Do Us Part which celebrated Hollywood marriages that stood the test of time. I did a post on James Garner and his wife who at the time had been married for 55 years (now 57 years upon his death). I figured that all of the traffic was coming from people searching “James Garner Death”. On the contrary, many visitors found that post searching for "Lois Fleischman Clarke." The post serves as a nice little tribute to their marriage and a small insight into Garner's life.